Happy Pi Day

Today is March 14. 3.14. Pi Day! Google spreadsheet offers a function that will return the value of pi to 14 decimal points. In a Google spreadsheet template, type = PI() and the output is 3.14159265358979. In Excel the same function = PI() returns the value of pi to 9 decimal points.

For a few applications of pi, take a look at our posts:

• What’s the Volume of a Pyramid?  
  
• Fibonacci and Golden Ratio in Spreadsheets
  

A few fun facts about pi

•  Greek mathematician Archimedes (287 to 212 BC) is credited for first calculating pi.
• However, the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and Chinese also dabbled with approaches to calculating pi.
• The Greek symbol of pi was first introduced by William Jones in 1706, though Leonhard Euler popularized its use about 30 years later.
• The most graphed digits of pi is over 2.5 trillion!